news Malcolm Turnbull has sternly rejected an online petition which has so far garnered more than 200,000 signatures calling for the Coalition to support Labor’s all-fibre NBN policy, with the Communications Minister-elect claiming it wouldn’t be “democracy” for the new Coalition Government to reverse the rival NBN policy it took to the election.

Since the Coalition won power on Saturday, a vigorous online movement focused on getting the new Abbott administration to abandon its own National Broadband Network policy and support Labor’s existing vision has been gaining force. Supporters of Labor’s vision argue that it will serve Australia’s long-term interests much better, as it features an all-fibre NBN, delivering a more reliable network and faster speeds.

The Coalition’s version of the NBN policy will see part of Telstra’s existing copper network maintained, in what is termed a ‘fibre to the node’ deployment. The model has been extensively and successfully deployed in countries such as the UK, but Australian proponents of Labor’s policy have highlighted the fact that it offers limited speed boosts over currently available broadband in Australia (up to 100Mbps as a top-end limit), compared with Labor’s NBN, which will offer enhanced levels of reliability and speeds up to 1Gbps, coupled with significantly enhanced upload speeds.

Telecommunications industry experts have consistently stated that they believe Labor’s NBN policy to be highly technically superior to the Coalition’s more modest vision, and having the potential to deliver Australia superior long-term outcomes in terms of service delivery and boosting Australia’s economy through productivity gains.

In addition, questions have been raised about the extent to whether it’s possible to deploy the FTTN technology the Coalition is focused on in Australia and whether it will perform as the Coalition has claimed. There are also questions as to whether Telstra, which owns the copper network which would need to be used as part of the FTTN rollout, will consent to modify its existing $11 billion arrangement with the Labor Federal Government and NBN Co, along the lines the Coalition plans.

A petition placed on popular website Change.org on the issue following the election, demanding the Coalition reconsider the FTTN technology and focus on the superior FTTP option, has already garnered in excess of 200,000 signatures, with tens of thousands more Australians putting their names to the issue every day.

“Last Saturday there was a general election at which the NBN was one of the most prominent issues. The Coalition’s NBN Policy – which can be read here had been published in April – five months ahead of the election. The Coalition won the election,” said Turnbull.

“The promoters of this petition apparently believe that we should ignore the lengthy public debate on the NBN that preceded the election and also ignore the election result. We should within days of the election walk away from one of our most well debated, well understood and prominent policies. Democracy? I don’t think so.”

Turnbull acknowledged the NBN debate was not over — despite it having raged over the past eight years, since then-Telstra chief executive Sol Trujillo first proposed a FTTN NBN for Australia in 2005.

However, the Liberal MP said, he was determined that from now on the debate should “at least” be fully informed, because the Coalition was planning to conduct a strategic review within the next 60 days which would show how long it would take and how much it would cost to complete the NBN on current specifications. “We will also set out what our options are to complete the project sooner and more cost effectively and again what that means in terms of affordability and of course in service levels,” Turnbull said.

“Many of the FTTP supporters on Twitter and elsewhere say that they don’t care what it costs or how long it takes – they want fibre to the home regardless. That point of view is reckless in the extreme. Every public infrastructure project has to be carefully and honestly analysed so that governments, and citizens, can weigh up the costs and benefits.”

“This study is vital for the public to be fully informed and our redesign of the project will be informed by the result of those studies.”

Turnbull claimed the Coalition did not regard technology as an “ideological issue”, and was “technologically agnostic”. “We want to ensure that all Australians have very fast broadband as soon, as cheaply and as affordably as possible,” the Liberal MP said. “The NBN project at present is running over budget and way behind schedule. At the current rate of progress it will take decades to complete and close to $100 billion.”

“The Labor Government has not been honest with the public about the NBN. They never conducted a cost benefit analysis, they have sought at every turn to conceal the fact that the project has been failing to meet its targets.”

to all the 20 something yr olds creating websites who have no industry experience, knowledge or education in the are of telecoms engineering, you are in your right to create your websites, but being a telco engineer working in this field, i would be glad to see this project wound up.

And yes, i do agree that the $90Bn peak cost of the NBN is possible, even if it comes in at $37Bn, the network would be mostly a write off. There are no wins for what is a bad project.

I’m a Network Engineer mid 30’s and I highly disagree with you, you do not need to be 20 to vote for future proofing Australia with tech that should have been already started (glad it already has) let along go backwards and reintroduce a already dead and seriously fractured infrastructure like the copper network.

Fibre has its place and it is the future no arguing that point, Telstra said some 20 years ago the copper network was in desperate need for a complete overhaul and here we are still depending on it….. it is just plain stupid and for a so called Network Engineer such as yourself to say it is a good idea, I do question your qualifications indeed.

no no this is higher remember they started at around $60 billion then up to $90 billion and now $100 Billion. This is one of those times I’d like to see a headline with lier and malcom turnbulls name in it.

he had the hide to follow that 100bn sentence with “The Labor Government has not been honest with the public about the NBN”

check the mirror in your bathroom, mate. most debated, i’ll give him that. well understood policies? by the LNP no, as they were militant in deliberate misunderstandings and misrepresentation of the policy through and through. im certainly not seeing only one dishonest mob out there, out of this.

then the arrogance of saying ‘youve had your democracy now’ also galls. no, we had an election where people were sick of the old mob and threw them out. those are the LEAST democratic elections because they are not won on policies but personalities. had there been a referendum on the FTTH question (which i think was one thing should have been investigated, for precisely this reason) it likely would have been >50% and Malcolm would have had his ‘democratic’ vote to continue it – but it was deemed unneccessary.

this is what i feared most from a puffed up LNP flush with success. you peons dont matter anymore; they’ve got what they came for. Listening to the constituency is only for before the election; never after.

Couldn’t agree more, he is talking out of his a$$ that is for sure, he thinks the Australian people are stupid, mixing up words and fluffing up your comments do not do jack for an intelligent person Turnbull, you forget you are speaking to people more tech savvy than yourself and obviously whoever is advising you also.

“Mr Turnbull said the suggestion that a fibre-to-the-premises network should be rolled out regardless of time or cost was ‘reckless in the extreme’.”

“There will be a strategic review conducted within the next 60 days which will show how long it will take and how much it will cost to complete the NBN on the current specifications and what that means both to the taxpayer and to the consumers.”

I would lay much of the blame for the current situation at the feet of the technical community. If they had actually critically examined the NBNCo Corporate Plans, identified the areas of extravagance, waste and bad ideas. Instead, many became Conroy fanboi club members shouting down any who criticized plans as evidenced by Whirlpool NBN forum FUD thread.

“NBN Co assumes hardly any users will need the 1000/400 megabits per second product until the second half of this decade, and it is priced accordingly. Less than 5 per cent of users will elect to take up this service by 2028 – compared to over a third of users who will choose upload speeds of 1 megabit per second.”

The death notice for ubiquitous FTTP will most likely be signed by the “conservative” NBNCo Corporate Plan, which so many refused to examine critically.

yeah, this is a rare occasion where I’m gonna have to agree with Turnbull.

Why the hell are people fighting this now? Seriously, I dont understand why when we’ve got at least a good three years of awesome copper entertainment ahead of us. If they stick with FttH we’d miss out on that.

I mean step 1 being rumoured to tap the guy who charged people $189/GB, Ziggy Switkowski, and under whom this quote was made by his head of regulatory affairs: “There is an ADSL fetish that ADSL equals broadband. We do not believe that. We sell broadband services, and so we will try ISDN for those customers. That may be all they need, particularly if they are downloading stuff from the US, because ISDN is the maximum speed you will need to get stuff from the US.” I, for one, welcome our new 3 GB a month overlord. I mean, they’ve been talking the need for someone who has run a large telco before to be put in charge of NBN Co so very much that Ziggy is one of the very few choices indeed. First Malcolm goeas on Landline and complains that fully unlimited 1 Gbps would cost $20k in wholesale charges a month and his solution is to get the guy who ran a telco that charged people $67 million for the same thing until not that long ago. Affordable? Ha!

And now step 2 is, in response to FTTH being preferred by the electorate, even though the election result wasn’t making this quite clear due to a focus on other policies and following a petition by 210k+ people, the most popular online petition in Australia: “Democracy? I don’t think so.” What a statement to make. If that many people would have changed their mind in the two-party preferred vote, the coalition would have had a very slender victory indeed. By the time this petition is done, more people will probably have signed it than voted for Katter’s Australian Party and Family First combined.

I can’t wait for step 3. I really can’t. This is a turning into a catastrophe of an ever increasingly more entertaining farce by the minute. By all means, keep going, I’m just sitting here with my popcorn and watching the ever increasing amount of money and time that will be wasted on FTTN.

I’m looking forward especially to the survey, to be held some time around 2018, of house prices and property values and all that and the inevitable comparison between FTTP and FTTN areas. And the conclusion may well be that the difference is nearly as much as the cost of putting FTTP, if not more. Except that the cost for putting FTTP in will increase ever more and the government is stuck and can’t reduce prices without pissing off the people who paid a lot for that FTTP connection. And it’ll prevent FTTP from being rolled out because they will market it as a luxury product that’s not affordable to have ubiquitously.

Meanwhile, China is rolling out 35 million FTTP connections this year and it’s compulsory for all new premises.

Anyway, the popcorn is very ready and I’m very much looking forward to seeing exactly how this catastrophe unfolds. I’m guessing the next part is a continued exaggeration of the cost of Labor’s NBN despite a “cost-benefit analysis”. A cost-benefit analysis for a commercial investment. It’s like me opening a savings account and my wife demanding a cost-benefit analysis to analyse the social benefits created by my opening a savings account, that’s how much sense it makes. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

I’m also looking forward to the numbers coming out of the copper and how nuclear exactly the atomic banana will have to exactly be to make them work. And the breakdown in the funding model for FTTP because the plan is changing to make FTTP a whole bunch less commercially viable. There’s just so many possibilities for entertainment here, it’s beautiful. All brought to you by the party that was stupid enough to privatise the state telco and allow it to keep the HFC network, in a world-wide unique idiocy of a policy that has provided us with so very good entertainment already.

I am looking forward to see the price (money or otherwise) that MT will need to pay for the copper.

Of even more interest, though, is how much FTTN providing 25Mbps and 50Mbps is $29.5b going to buy. Let’s not forget that the proper costing of the network has not been undertaken yet. This alone should take quite a while, considering the question mark over the state of the last mile, and the number of nodes needed. Will the funds already spent be added to the cost, or would they be deducted?

Well let’s assume the $29.5b funding requirement is on the conservative side and by 2016 when the electorate has the next chance to change NBN policy and it’s time to boot the Coalition out for blowing that funding prediction because Telstra wanted a hell of lot more than the $11b they are getting already under the existing contract and it is more than the difference of $44.1b -$29.5b for the copper use for FTTN.

So assuming a Labor win in 2016, what’s Labor going to do with all the FTTN cabinets post 2016, shut them down and start again and retrofit FTTP because they have to continue on with their old 2010 NBN political policy?

Not at all. I can see how you would mistake my comments as barbed words though. Let me put it this way Renai I made a topic in the forum some time ago and one thing I said was something along the lines of “making the most of it” I think my comments are simply making the most of it.

There are those that think they can squeeze blood from stone trying to get Turnbull to change his mind or whatever, good for them, however I see no reason not to laugh at them along with the FttN plan. I mean come on, we’ve known for some time what would happen if the coalition got in. Now they want to start petitions? Cigarettes have warning labels on them so dumbasses know they can get cancer. Do we have to label the coalition too? We knew they were toxic too!

2 now, target 100. But in Coalition terms, that is all the votes that a petition needs using today’s technology….. Who in their right mind would ever need 210,000 votes for a petition – just technology zealots and extremists….

“The change.org petition to keep the current ‘FTTH’ NBN has been getting a lot of signatures but Tony has a mandate to move to a ‘FTTN’ NBN which will be just fine for Australia. The ‘FTTH’ NBN just costs too much, all that money could be used to stop the boats! Australians simply don’t need all that speed, 25Mbs is fast enough.”

The cost and slowness was not generated by Turnbull, the NBN Business plans and rushed adjusted downward rollout figures produced by the NBN Co and redefining of ‘premises passed’ to meet the last June target told that story much better than the Coalition could have.

Yes I will remind you of that ‘clarification’ description if the Coalition NBN Co clarify ‘premises passed’ as any residence that has copper connected, it’s just they cannot connect it to a FTTN cabinet yet.

The definition is that the infrastructure upgrades, like the fibre drops, or in the case of FTTN, cabinets are installed. That reason they made that clarification, if you’ll recall, is so that they can include premises that have not allowed NBNCo on their premises, i.e. the final drop to NTU, in their statistics. Which is consistent with industry definitions. For example, FiOS considers a premises passed before someone runs a line up the customers driveway, BT considers a premises passed before someone installs a line split and a modem, etc.

Therefore, a premises will be passed under FTTN under the same definition NBNCo are using when the cabinet is installed, the VDSL2+ DSLAM is active, and the line remediated.

But we’ve argued that before. The reason that Renai made a hoopla of it (the comment you linked) is because they added this stupid “ready for service” line in the definition that, by implication, he thought the ONT should be installed. An understandable mistake, and one I probably would have made too if I didn’t understand the industry definitions of “premises passed”.

Hence why I called it a clarification, because that is what it is. They didn’t “change’ the definition to make their stats look better, as you are implying, they clarified what they meant by “ready for service”, which isn’t “you can pick up the phone and order a service”, it’s “the premise has the needed infrastructure installed o be able to provide it a service.” Why is this distinction important? MDUs, who you can have installed all the on street work, but the strata doesn’t want to bother talking to you, as happened with HFC networks before Telstra and Optus basically “gave up”, and why Renai couldn’t get Telstra cable at his old place.

Welcome back… and here I was thinking since the Coalition won you’d disappear, mission accomplished (although you have been strangely quiet)…

FYI – the 93% FttP NBN (apart from an embarrassing turnaround from MT and the PM) is dead.

So instead of the perpetual NBN detractor comments (I know old habits and FttN really doesn’t have many plusses – tell us about the UK again) how about you start trying to convince us that FttN is actually feasible in comparison?

And please do so by looking at “everything” (big ask I know, speaking of feasible and having seen you comically tap dance around the government spends comparison being just $900m different)…

So now that I have got you to acknowledge 1) figures as being valid, what about addressing the point… i.e. acknowledging 2) figures?

Look, although your political leanings are steadfast, I know you aren’t stupid… but denying facts because they don’t align with your beliefs is stupid. So please don’t ask silly questions or make silly comments to further avoid the obvious.

2) figures are actual too and until such time as you just accept it, your comments are irrational and ergo IMO, breaching the rationality and reasonableness clause of the comments policy.

I don’t think there is one policy that the Liberals have a “mandate” for, or even one policy that the Liberals have that is worth spruiking. Labor imploded on its own. This “mandate” nonsense has got to stop. The only mandate that the Liberals have is to govern for the next three years.

Howard had a ‘mandate’ for work choices, look how well that went down with the electorate.
If it hadn’t been for their ‘anything but what Labor’s doing’ broadband policy, their mediaeval approach to climate science, and all their other policies that they pretended to cost but never really revealed the full details of pre-election, I might actually have voted for them.

Howard didn’t have a mandate for Workchoices, it was never taken to an election, and when it was they lost.

A lot of people have been misusing the word ‘mandate’ this week, it doesn’t mean having the majority of both houses and passing legislation. The word is used when you have multiple houses of legislature that are out of sync in election cycles.

Seems to me that the only election promise Malcolm is remembering is the FTTN one. I seem to remember that he also promised to complete the objectives of the NBN.

So we hold him to account for that. When he does his audit and CBA, we need to make certain to ask how soon his plan will provide for the performance targets that the Labor version was set to provide. Ask him how long his system will last before Nielson’s Law requires upgrades. And compare the timeframes accordingly.

Don’t make the discussion about FTTN versus FTTH.

Let him be technology-agnostic. We just need to make sure he isn’t functionality-agnostic as well.

And we do that by holding him to promises about goals, not concentrating on methods. Methods are for designers and engineers. Politicians should only be permitted to talk about goals.

Turnbull just spent how many years insisting he be heard saying how crap he thought the labour NBN was. Now he wants others to keep quiet and not point out the issues with his policies. Malcolm your dreaming. Welcome to government any mistakes are now your fault and you will be held to account. .

I used to hate the idea of losing the NBN but after hearing we can do what’s going on in the UK I’m totally for it. That will get most of Australia more than enough speed than they need and do it at a cost level that is far more benifit without throwing up the wholesale price yearly like the NBN projected it would. The NBN was going to take another 8+ years to get finished was way behind on schedule and the Labor cost analysis was a complete joke it was most likey as Turnbull said to cost upwards of $90 billion based off reasonable projections and not Labor’s fantasy ones. (Leftist Theage even confirmed this in their fact checking pieces).

Does grandpa Joe need 1gbit to his home? No probably a waste but under the NBN my tax money goes towards paying $5000 a household for every single house to get wired to the NBN. The result more class warfare and higher taxes to pay for all that waste. We need lower costs for business and people. Boom times over kids time to run the country like a business again instead of a teenager with dads credit card buying everything we see.

The NBN is being funded by loans, not taxes. The loans will be repaid by income generated from selling the services offered by the NBN.

The reason BT was able to do FTTN so cheaply is that they already own all the infrastructure. In Australia, the Liberals sold off Telstra for $6B a decade or two ago, and now we’re facing the probability that the Liberals will be buying access to the copper for $11B. What a great deal that was!

Forget the gigabit per second download speeds, look at the upload speeds. VDSL is not going to help people work or run a business from home.

Q2. Does grandpa Joe need a school?
Q3. Does grandpa Joe need a parental bonus?
Q4. Does grandpa Joe need a freeway (particularly one across the other side of Autsralia)?
Q5. Does grandpa Joe need a… should I continue?

Gee another who practices irrational NBN only logic.

Again… unless there’s a distinct change of heart, the FttP NBN is dead. So you and your ilk, please switch off the FUD button now, thank you.

Yes indeed the NBN was designed to repay itself which is just one reason why I have been here daily for the last 2 years supporting it apolitically…

I was actually having a facetious swipe at another who said Grandpa doesn’t need 1Gbps, by making equally silly claims about Grandpa’s needs. I also finished up by saying time to switch off the NBN FUD switch, because it’s time for these FttN fanbois to put up or shut up in relation to FttN, not keeping up on the NBN FUD…

Sorry if my comment wasn’t clear, because I can see now… it was somewhat ambiguous :(

The only “mandate” given by the election was for Liberal to not be Labor, for Sophie Mirabella to not be Cathy McGowan, for Bill Shorten to stop backstabbing Labor leadership.

In fact the major focus of attention during the campaign was “stop the boats.” Thus the only mandate the Liberal party has is to be the racist, homophobic conservatives that they always have been.

I did not have boxes on my ballot labelled “NBN” and “Stop the boats.” I had boxes on my ballot labelled, “Julie Melrose,” “Gai Brodtmann,” “Damien Maher,” “Nicolle Burt,” “Tony Hanley” and “Tom Sefton.”

It annoys me when politicians claim that one election gives them a mandate to do whatever they want. The only mandate comes from both houses of parliament accepting your proposals.

I look forward to seeing how the Liberal/National minority government performs in this coming term.

I love how people think that because grandpa Joe doesn’t need gigabit that the house he is living in now won’t ever need it. I didn’t know we were immortal.
And in future i hope that when houses are sold that have FTTH there is a caveat that liberal voters are not allowed to buy.
As for Turnbull, nice one. I thought he was just following the party line but looks like he is just as thick as Abbot.

One things the Libs just don’t seem to understand here is that the “geek” population is generally young, educated and have very very long memories.
This is going to continue to cost the liberal party votes well into the next decade.

‘One things the Libs just don’t seem to understand here is that the “geek” population is generally young, educated and have very very long memories.
This is going to continue to cost the liberal party votes well into the next decade.’

Wow the election result is only a bit over a week old, so where were all the ‘young geeks’ with long memories two Saturdays ago – hiding, or completely ignorant of Coalition NBN policy to the point they thought it was the same as Labor’s and voted that way?

I’m not usually someone who pays much attention to fake Twitter accounts – (I think they are a bit juvenile) -but I just saw this tweet, and I think it’s one of the best comments so far on this “you’ve had your democracy” point Malcolm is trying to make:

I’m been looking at the election results and I can’t see where you got 50% of the primary vote. http://www.abc.net.au/news/federal-election-2013/results/party-totals/
Things are a little better in the senate.
So where is your mandate, where are the 50% of Australian voters who said the LNP stand for everything we believe in so we are putting them number one on the ballot paper.

Democracy isn’t about absolute control it is about compromise and trying to do what is best for the people and/or what the people desire despite your personal preference. I have the same problem with “Conscience Votes”.

How can you have reviews into the best course of action when you have already made up your mind. There are issue with the Labor plan and most of them can be fixed with competent governance, and maybe some legislation changes, that you would likely get past the greens. Most of these issues also exist under the LNP plan, they remove some of these issue but then adds their own. The LNP plan also allows the funding model to be undermined which means tax payers and not end users will end up paying.

I seem to remember very similar words from Senator Conroy when the Internet filter was announced – he said something along the lines of ‘the Australian people have voted for this, that was the choice they made at the polls and that is what we are going to deliver’ (I’m paraphrasing from my memory of more than five years ago, so don’t crucify me for incorrect wording, mmkay?) That demonstrates that conflating an election results with mandates on a plethora of specific policies is severely flawed logic not supported by facts, that all politicians will engage in when it is convenient.

Mr Conroy was wrong about his filtering policy, and you are wrong here too, Mr Turnbull.

HC I understand your perspective and in many ways I agree – voting the LNP into power was not only the death knell for the NBN, but potentially for fair and economically sustainable telecommunications in Australia for decades or even centuries to come. The problem is, most voters knew next to nothing about the NBN, nor did they care.

Just like I can’t be held responsible for the idiotic choices of my neighbours, I shouldn’t be forced to accept the repercussions of the stupidity and bigotry of the millions of people who voted for the LNP. I would go so far as to say that even those people shouldn’t be forced into a damaging future because of their own stupidity – as well as providing essential services for the benefit of all society, in an ideal world one of those essential services should be saving people from their own ignorance. Unfortunately that’s rather difficult to achieve when that ignorance places the ignorant, the stupid and the self interested in the decision making seat…

My point is, as someone else said previously, democracy is not just about a vote every three years or so. It s an ongoing process and dialogue. It is freedom of speech and association, it is writing to your representative ministers to vote your concerns. It is protesting Government decisions that you don’t agree with and hoping that they pay attention if large numbers of the community come together to make their voices heard. That’s how we affect legal and social change, after all – where would the world be without the women’s suffrage or racial equality movements? They were hardly supported by any previously incumbent Government.

Protests and petitions are an important part of the democratic process Mr Turnbull purports to represent, a fact he would be wise to remember.

So just to be clear… people have voted for and elected the party that was never going to implement the full NBN (as espoused by Labor) and plans to privatise it earlier, and now these said people are unhappy that the elected government is now going to implement their policies as originally advertised?

What’s next? An online petition for Abbott to welcome the boats? Retain the Carbon Tax?

I don’t think they’d have much luck, and neither will those petitioning here for the full (and better) NBN.

People have, but I didn’t. LOTS of people didn’t. On that basis the majority supported racial discrimination and female inequality at the time, too – would you suggest it was unreasonable of people to protest and have those laws changed?

To Be Clear, there are more primary votes for the FTTP Labor party, than the liberal, Liberals only get to be in charge because they formed a minority government with the National Party in a Coalition.

It’s not a minority Government result in 2013, the last election in 2010 was a minority Government where Labor had to keep the Independents and the Greens happy to back them into Government and before any legislation was passed.

Also National party NBN policy was the same as the Liberal NBN policy, that’s because it was a combined Coalition policy, and was labelled as such, and Australia votes knowing that Liberals and the National party are a combined party, it’s no secret.

I am not sure why you are still trying to defend the honour of the Coalition. Surely, there must be other things Head Office needs you for the time being.

One thing is sure, your devoted, principled, and unbiased point of view will be much needed when MT gets all tangled up with trying to start to actually develop a properly designed and costed plan for Lotteryband.

Simple question. How many Nodes will we need to cover the Australian population, if there is a node every 5-800 metres?

I’d hazard a guess that there would be well over 150,000 to cover our real-estate.

That’s an AWFUL lot of big cabinets getting in the way of our views. Hell, my estate will need approximately 5 nodes plus significant amout of re-cabling of the CAN to achieve FTTN – whereas 1 FDH will cover the same area with the same amout of re-cabling. Since copper and fibre cabling costs are similar, it comes down to a comparison of 1 FDH & GPON vs 5 x Nodes. If a node costs “around” $130K (and we need 5 of them) compared to “around” $10K for aan FDH/GPON which investment makes better economic sense? And all for 250 houses, so one node for every 50 houses – madness!

Not to mention the on-going cost of copper maintenance we will need going forward!

So, Renai, are we sure exactly how many nodes Australia will need? This number needs to be set free into the “debate” as that may suddenly sway a lot of the NIMBY’s out there.

This is no insult to anyone, but do we have a number, or a guestimate mate?

Pat, Turnbull has thrown the number 68,000 around, which has been broadly accepted as a reasonable estimate by numerous experts for the initial 25mbps plan, where maximum line length will be 800m. But to get 50mbps with vectoring you are talking 400 to 500m, which will blow the number of nodes out to something in the range of 200,000. Even Turnbull has acknowledged the number of nodes must be increased with his suggestion of micro nodes, but completely ignored the economic implications – those familiar with the infrastructure have stated that 90% of the cost of a node comes from deployment, so installing smaller, cheaper nodes isn’t actually going to save very much overall – in fact, it will be a very costly exercise indeed.

These have many different names, but in my experience are most commonly called “DA Posts”. These posts are the central point of any distribution area. Trunk cabling runs from the exchange to each of these posts – (many have been replaced by cabinets, and RIMs and other similar structures) – and the copper running to your home wends it way to the post at the centre of the DA you are in.

(Note: technically, this could be described as a “Copper to the Node” network).

Presuming that the same DA layouts are followed – (and NBN Co have predominantly done so up until now, because following that means you don’t have to dig any new ducts – they are already there with the copper running through it) – each node would be roughly analogous to the existing DA posts.

The average DA contains around 300 premises.

The NBN – (in whatever form it takes) – is meant to cover about 12,700,000 premises – with about 900,000 covered by wireless and satellite.

So, the 93% that remains – (about 11,800,000 premises) – would need to be split into chunks of approximately 300 premises on average, to save the construction of new ducting.

In rough terms, this is about 39,370 nodes. Sounds like a relatively small number, but it’s not that simple.

Malcolm wants everyone to be close enough to a node to get to 25Mbps minimum, and not everyone in the 300-premise DA is going to be close enough to the existing DA post to get that speed, presuming the node is dropped at that location.

My hunch is that each DA will certainly need 2, and maybe 3 nodes to get everyone in the 25Mbps “range” from the node they are connected to. Shall we be generous and say on average each existing DA will need 2.3 nodes.

That’s about 90,000 nodes, and in the ball park of most expert predictions.

Remember, the tender response submitted by Optus for the original NBN tender was for 75,224 nodes, with 75% coverage at 12Mbps with ADSL2.

So 90,000 has a reasonably accurate feel to it for minimum 25Mbps minimum with VDSL.

That’s stage one. The second stage of Malcolm’s plan is get everyone to 50Mbps, which means putting more nodes out there to get everyone close enough to a node to get to 50Mbps. Malcolm has already called these “mini nodes”.

So, I’m pretty confident with the answer of “beyond 90,000 nodes”.

And lets remember, the moment a DA has more than one node in it, you’re changing the wiring layout of the area, and committing to at least some re-trenching/re-ducting to get it all connected together.

FTTN might well be quicker to roll out, but you create more work, simply because there is a distance vs speed boundary with copper that you don’t have with fibre.

This is where Malcolm is going to find it a lot harder than he thinks, or at least says publicly.

at 93% you’re including all the premises that have (or will have) FTTP, so that number must be removed from your calculation/estimate. That’s why MT’s number is within the ballpark for 25mbps, although personally I think it will be closer to 75k all told (but that’s still within about a 10% margin of error).

Sorry Paul, with all due respect it doesn’t matter if you agree or not, those are the facts. You’re forgetting about all the FTTP NBN Co have already completed or are contracted to complete, which the LNP have committed to honouring. According to the LNP’s estimates, that will result in 22% of the country on FTTP, 7% on wireless and satellite and 71% on FTTN, and while I have huge problems with many of their published estimates I have no material reason to dispute these distributions at this point (and nor does any expert I’ve read on the subject).

thats not necessarily to say our boxen will be identical to the AT&T ones, but the local area govt and resident issues (noise, placement) along with Malcolms intent to hit 25mbits off the first tranche is going to make it interesting to say the least, watching this get put into action. if the boxen are similar, i note some commentators at Ars are saying its pretty much constant fan-noise in the summer – i couldnt say whether they were northern or southern residents but if that was in the cooler north i dont think that bodes well for the Australian experience, given our climate.

im only doing what Malcolm recommended here – looking at whats happening overseas. and i have to say far from settling my mind it only keeps me asking ques about the LNP policy.

You’re over-analysing their plan. The fundamental premise of the libtard broadband plan was to simply “oppose” (their favourite word while in opposition) Labour’s plan; and to do this viably, they had to make it cheaper. CHEAPER- that’s all.

‘Conservatives’ are dubbed accordingly not because they like to preserve fruits in glass jars. The overarching mantra of people who align with this side of politics is to take all their worldly possessions, cram them under their beds, draw the blinds, light a candle and pray for a swift death and ascension to whatever shangri la tickles their fancy.

The aforementioned mindset doesn’t exactly reconcile with forward-thinking policy like the NBN.

As much as it pains me to say this (Gee, which way did Pat vote?) the LNP won the election. They are the Legitimate Government, and to suggest otherwise is to start the long journey into “FruitCake Land TM” where we turn into Americans!

Let’s not go there, OK?

Just because they won doesn’t allow them to have a carte-blanch (sp?) mandate for everything. Public Opinion can be used to sway them, and I humbly suggest that this *may* occur with the NBN, but it requires a concerted effort for a significant period of time. MT has strong powers, lets wear the bugger down guys, don’t give up!

I’m sick of the NBN. I handle all the IT at my firm and all I get are vague promises about the NBN. Recently I was told that “yes the cable is damaged,” and that “no we are not going to fix it you can wait for the NBN.” In the area in question the NBN was slotted to be finished 4mths ago and yet right before the election they had trucks with billboards claiming that “The NBN is here! Call your ISP.”

I contacted my network supplied and surprise, surprise the NBN wasn’t ready, nor would it be for some time with no date for it to be ready.

The NBN is nothing more then a Labor attempt to secure the “online” vote. It would always come up just before an election and then debated heatedly. Everyone is aware that the NBN was announced in 2007-08 right? That is 6 yrs ago. 6yrs!! And it is still not available in the 4th largest city in Queensland. I voted for Liberal because I actually work and I’m sick of Labor’s empty promises.

Liberal won, get over it and stop crying over a multi-billion dollar money sink of a project, we’re still in a recession, regardless of what Labor claims.

Wow I would say I feel sorry for your ‘firm’ having such an incompetent looking after their IT requirements, but then it was their ineptitude that put you in that position and continue to employ you so, good luck with that!

You will get FTTP if your story is accurate, there has obviously been some delay. Are you in one of the areas that was delayed by Telstra’s asbestos debacle? Have you even made phone calls to determine what has caused the delay or what the estimated time frame for service delivery is? These aren’t difficult things to determine, particularly as a representative of a decent sized business interested in a top tier business plan – most ISP’s will bend over backwards to answer your questions in the hope that you will select them when the time comes to connect.

But I understand it’s easier to sit in ignorance and cast dispersions, just like it’s easier to ignore that failed backup or those unpatched critical updates or that dodgy network switch that only occasionally plays up…

PS I realise I’ve made numerous baseless assumptions and generalisations, but I didn’t think you’d mind as you are obviously happy doing the same thing yourself. But even so, it wasn’t fair to assume you work for a business of any reasonable size – your ‘firm’ may well consist of a single employee for all I know, or may be completely fictional. I admit that all I really know about you is you enjoy jumping to conclusions, making baseless assumptions and generally having NFI what you’re talking about. My apologies.

I had respect for Turnbull, especially given he’s meant to be the libtard leader. But, now that these white ants are in office, they’re all just towing the party’s line, irrespective of rhyme or reason.

Even at this early stage, Australia looks to have indeed received the government it deserves. If but all bogan Australia had but one neck. *sighs*

The arrogance of this twat is astounding. To think that a vote for Liberal is a 100% vote of every single policy is sheer idiocy and arrogance. I thought Turnbull would be better than Abbot, now it’s become clear they are both idiots who clearly do not understand representative democracy.

Ignore 200k people actually prepared to sign a petition (most are too lazy to) and see how many terms you spend in government.

It’s so flamin pleasing that some people will get FTTP and some will get FTTN or have to pay themselves for FTTP, that’s certainly democracy!

Well the first one in 2007 was for FTTN, the second vote in 2010 lead to a hung Parliament with each party gaining a equal number of seats, the third NBN vote was for the Coalition policy with a healthy predicted 92 seat vs 54 seat majority.

In a three way comparison since 2007 which NBN policy got the highest mandate?

I am not sure where you are going with this, you keep referring back to the 2PP in the 2010 election, we have had that and it’s done and dusted, Labor won Government with three Independents and a Green backing and their NBN FTTP policy was implemented.

What is your point of comparison with the recent Coalition election win and their NBN policy?

The devil is in the unexplained detail in the LNP FTTN plan. while 100Mbps is quite a respectable speed for most domestic consumers, only a handful will actually be able to connect at that speed. What they haven’t told the public is that VDSL2, speed declines quickly with distance from the node. Only households with a “node” in front of their home will achieve full speed. Speed drops to half by 500m, below ADSL2 speed by 1000m and down to ADSL1 speeds beyond that. Not to mention mention that consumers on a “pair gain” system, like many suburbs, won’t benefit at all, because that last mile of copper relied on by FTTN is the limiting factor.

At a pre-election demonstration of 100Mbps FTTN by Malcolm Turnbull, the maximum speed reached was half that claimed… and that with the “node” a mere 500m from the home.

It is difficult to listen to Malcolm touting the value of FTTN, when he personally owns shares in two European telcos, currently rolling out major FTTH networks in France and Spain. Apparently, he sees that as a good investment for himself, but not for his own country.

‘The devil is in the unexplained detail in the LNP FTTN plan. while 100Mbps is quite a respectable speed for most domestic consumers, only a handful will actually be able to connect at that speed’

Update: Coalition policy was not for that speed in isolation , it was a minimum of 25Mbps up to 100Mbps for all by 2016 and and a minimum of 50Mbps and up to 100 Mbps for 90% of the fixed line footprint by 2019.

‘It is difficult to listen to Malcolm touting the value of FTTN, when he personally owns shares in two European telcos, currently rolling out major FTTH networks in France and Spain’

Those telco’s are also rolling out FTTN as well, so your concern is misplaced here because Coalition policy is for a combined FTTN and FTTP rollout.

I think the Liberal government, and Turnbull in particular, need to realise that they were elected in spite of their NBN policy, not because of it.

I for one, always liberal voter, gave serious though to voting labour this election solely because the NBN was the one piece of policy that would really have an appreciable impact on me on and the Lib’s NBN policy stinks

Our friend is now simply solidifying what we all already knew, motive wise anyway, in relation to what could only be described as completely disingenuous NBN hatred…

Let’s face it, no one could completely oppose absolutely everything to do with the previous FttP NBN (in fact invent negativity) and now embrace absolutely everything to do with the current FttN plan (in fact invent positivity) having two fully functional apolitical eyes…

Why are people making so much noise about a pack of lying politicians ? same old boring excuses. They won a popularity contest, nothing more nothing less. In winning this popularity contest that means that they automatically now know everything that’s good for Australia and that all of their policies are 100% correct. (AIN’T THAT RIGHT, MALCOLM THE MAGNIFICENT?)

Who is capable of putting a value on the benefits of a world leading FTTP infrastructure, who knows what innovations and inventions Australians would come up with when armed with such an advanced telecommunications network. Unless you have a crystal ball you don’t know what capabilities this exciting technology would unleash for future generations. It’s not something to write off because your rival in the popularity contest held a different view to you, it’s time to do what is right for future generations.

I have a degree and many years experience in the field of computer science but you only have to put an iphone anywhere near an infant to realise that the digital age is already on top of us. Do it once, do it right, stop wasting rate payers money stuffing around with any second rate project that includes old copper.

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